Hometown Teams and Visualizing Exhibits

Hometown Teams: How Sports Shape America explores the ways in which sports affect American culture. The exhibit was curated by Museum on Main Street and designed, edited and fabricated by the Office of Exhibits Central. OEC prepared five copies of Hometown Teams, which will tour the United States and territories over the next five years.

Designers used a variety of tools to visualize this exhibit. They drafted drawings, built scale models, and created 3D renderings. Each of these different methods of visualization offered unique benefits. The images below illustrate how OEC designers explored the look, feel, and experience of Hometown Teams.

Drawing is the designer’s standby. It is a traditional method, and frequently the quickest to execute. Designers can sketch out ideas, place text, images, and draft plans, elevations, and perspectives.

This drawing is an example of the graphic design and structural elements of one section of Hometown Teams.

Sometimes a two-dimensional drawing can’t capture how various elements of the exhibition relate to one another. Designers build scale models to add that third dimension and physicality. These models help designers and curators work together to refine exhibition flow and content.

This model is an early design of the pylons used in the show.

An updated version of the scale model is the 3D rendering. Digital models offer designers, clients, and visitors the added advantage of being able to easily view the exhibit from multiple perspectives. Designers can also create fly through animations to give the visitor the feeling of moving through an exhibition.